Champion of Wits Discussion

2 months ago

I have a slightly different take on the
Shared Fate
archetype. The traditional method of making the deck is to not have any win conditions, and win by stealing your opponents' things. The problem is that this leaves you open to all the opponents' mischief. And any removal spell that you can use to slow them down will be used against you when you cast a threat from their library. This almost guarantees the opponent will always have a superior board position: anything you have that is good against their board before Shared Fate will be good against you after.

So, what you want are cards that break the symmetry:

Suspend: Suspend cards can only be suspended from your hand. An opponent could not suspend
Ancestral Vision
, and could not cast it for its mana cost, effectively making it a blank card under Shared Fate. Other suspend cards like
Ith, High Arcanist
or
Mindstab
, the opponent would have to wait many turns before being able to cast, if it even did them any good.

Flashback: These are generally symmetric. Before Shared Fate, you can cast it twice. After Shared Fate, the opponent can cast it, and then you can cast it.
Lingering Souls
is the best one, because it's cheaper for you to flashback then for them to cast.

Aftermath: I'm sure you heard this before, but the opponent can get the first half of the spell, but only you can get the aftermath half. These vary wildly in usefulness, but
Never
Cut
Rags
Spring
Farm
Start
are all worth considering, especially because you can still get the first half before Shared Fate is on the battlefield.

Eternalize: These cards work differently from your graveyard, allowing you to actually have win conditions. Consider, for example:
Proven Combatant
. Before Shared Fate, you have a 1-mana 1/1. After Shared Fate, your opponent gets a 1-mana 1/1, but you get a 6-mana 4/4. Bonus points, because it's a zombie and cannot be targeted by
Victim of Night
, allowing you to have removal spells that can kill the opponent's creatures, but the opponent cannot use to kill your eternalized creatures. Of these,
Adorned Pouncer
,
Sunscourge Champion
and
Dreamstealer
are the pretty good, but
Champion of Wits
is absolutely nuts: eternalizing it with Shared Fate on the battlefield is "draw 4" with no drawback.

Dredge: You can choose which draw replacement effect replaces your draw, allowing you to dredge even from under Shared Fate. This means you can always get your
Darkblast
. Bonus points if you're using Aftermath and Eternalize cards.

Origins Flip Planeswalkers: This cycle of 5 specifically says to return it to the battlefield under its owners' control, so an opponent could never control them in their planeswalker form. I saw you had the blue one in your deck, but only
Liliana, Heretical Healer
Flip can be forced to transform against her controller's will (the opponent will still get the 2/2 zombie she makes).

Cycling: Cards that cycle must be in your hand, but there are a few important cards to consider:
Gempalm Polluter
and
Krosan Tusker
don't have any abilities for casting them normally, only cycling.
Faerie Macabre
isn't really cycling, but it is important because it is one of the few graveyard hate spells the opponent cannot use from under Shared Fate.

Recover: These cards from Coldsnap allow you to keep putting the card back in your hand from your graveyard, if you have the mana to do so. None of the cards its printed on are particularly good, but of these
Sun's Bounty
,
Krovikan Rot
and
Grim Harvest
might be the closest to playable. It's too bad there aren't more good cards in red for Shared Fate, because
Rekindled Flame
is pretty sweet.

You're probably wondering about how any or all of these ideas fit the theme of Shared Fate, and the answer is simple: unlike the traditional style, where you're trying to beat them with their deck, these ideas center around a Shared Deck; both you and the opponent will be playing your cards, and it doesn't really matter what's in their library. Sure, their cards give you more options, but the idea is that you can win without ever casting anything of theirs.

2 months ago

I don't own a Mana Drain or Mana Crypt - I mean if you've got those run them; I just decided to write a primer for the list I was already running (with cards I currently own). If you were going to cut one of the counterspells for Mana Drain, though, the cut is probably one of
Arcane Denial
,
Disallow
, or
Negate
, which are all worse than Counterspell.

6 months ago

Hey, saw your forum topic asking for help. Do you own the cards that are in the maybeboard? There's several there that are much better than cards in the main deck.

Consider building this Dimir deck with Sultai in mind? If your goal is to play Sultai with Tasigur or Muldrotha later on then my advice is get playable cards that you can use in those decks, but for the time being get blue, black and Dimir cards and play them here with budget good stuff self-mill/reanimation strategies. Good stuff being playable spells especially creatures who have good ETB (enter the battlefield) abilities. Tasigur and Muldrotha use self-mill strategies not opponent mill strategies. Tasigur and Muldrotha abilities only work with cards in your own graveyard. Self-mill is much more powerful than opponent mill in multiplayer Commander.

Budget cards ($5 or less each) to consider adding that you can use in Sultai with Tasigur or Muldrotha later on:

If you like this idea then I can further help you to change this deck to make it easier to convert it into Sultai later on, but for now still being a good Dimir deck with Scarab God as Commander. Let me know your thoughts, good luck.

7 months ago

I do agree that
Go for the Throat
is better than
Cast Down
- my meta has a lot of artifact decks and was why I had it, but I do I agree GftT is broadly better and I'll update it to reflect that.

My thinking with
Hieroglyphic Illumination
is that, while both its modes are subpar, having both options is actually good for this deck, and in practice I haven't had problems with it. It's pretty nice with hands where you have homunculus and not Gifts, since you can hold up any interaction then cast it at the end of their turn to draw two, hopefully digging you into a Gifts for turn 4. The cantrip 'mode' isn't good, but it does get an instant in the yard on turn one for homunculus to flip. Don't forget about flipped Homunculus' discount - Hiero as an instant speed Divination is actually pretty good. I can totally see the argument for just going with better cantrips, but it's worked decently for me up till now. If I replace it, I actually think
Thought Scour
would be the initial pick, since the self mill is actually reasonably helpful.

Thirst for Knowledge
and
Champion of Wits
probably seem weird, but there are reasons I have included them. There are hands with this deck where you have a fatty and Unburial Rites in your opening hand, and having discard outlets that discard two cards is actually really helpful there. This is the same reason
Collective Brutality
is such an all-star in this deck - I have won games by discarding a fatty and Elesh Norn on turn three and reanimating them on turn 4. In addition to giving a little more consistency to the plan, they both dig into the deck.
Champion of Wits
in particular can be a quasi-finisher that refills your hand at a pretty low opportunity cost.

I do agree that the countermagic is subpar, but it's here mostly to protect the fatties. That's the main reason I'm running
Negate
- it slots in extremely well into the ideal sequence of cantrip -> homunculus -> Gifts. On turn four, you'll be reanimating for three mana thanks to the discount, letting you hold up one blue mana for the negate to protect against spot removal, board wipes, and surgicals. (Mana Leak also benefits from this.) I do want to try out Logic Knot, but I'm not sure if the anti-synergy with Homunculus is worth it.
Supreme Will
is an interesting suggestion! I hadn't thought of that and that might be promising.

Fatal Push
is a great suggestion! I'm not sure what to slot it in for, though. It could be a replacement for
Cast Down
and would probably be fine there, and that's probably what I'll test initially.

All that said, I can definitely envision a more control oriented version of this deck using more/better cantrips and counterspells with a higher percentage of removal, and that might be the next direction I take it in. Thanks a ton for taking the time to evaluate my deck :)

Thirst for Knowledge
isn't great in this deck since you can't take advantage of the "unless you discard an artifact" clause very often. I'd honestly probably cut this for countermagic or removal but if you were really insistent on playing another draw spell
Think Twice
is much better, especially in
Gifts Ungiven
piles. I'd also recommend cutting
Champion of Wits
in this 3-drop slot since it's sorcery speed and your deck really wants to curve 1-2-4 with
Curious Homunculus
Flip

Your countermagic package leaves much to be desired. I'd definitely play some number of
Remand
(if you can afford it) and make your 1-ofs
Logic Knot
and
Mana Leak
, or
Supreme Will
if you're REALLY lacking in card selection.
Negate
is just too narrow for modern (though it is a good sideboard option) and
Condescend
is only really good in hand, and even then feels a bit clunky without Blue-Tron levels of mana acceleration

Fatal Push
would be very good in this deck, and from my understanding is pretty inexpensive right now. I'd pick those up and slot them in if you can.

The deck idea here is sweet, and I think with some minor changes it could make a super sweet budge deck. Good luck tuning it and have fun!

Champion of Wits occurrence in decks from the last year

Commander / EDH:

All decks: 0.01%

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